One year ago today, my SaaS tech company that started as a sketch on an airplane napkin, was officially acquired.

Here's my short story.

In 2009, I was a paralegal at a law firm with too much ambition and mad entrepreneurial vibes.

On the side, I was an aerial photographer and eventually framed and sold my art in galleries and out of my tiny studio apartment. I spent more printing than I made but I enjoyed it.

I realized I could make more working virtually for attorneys across the US so I created The Paralegal Team, a virtual paralegal firm.

I sent my resume to attorneys on Craigslist looking for paralegals. But it was hard to convince them to let me work virtually in 2011.

Eventually, I got a couple clients and they were impressed with my work. One wanted to fire his whole bankruptcy dept and let Paralegal Team take over. But Paralegal Team was just me...

I had to figure out how to scale and realized I couldn't do it with the software I was using.

A week later, on a flight with my mom, I told her about my idea. I sketched it on a napkin to explain the cloud and what my new online bankruptcy app would do.

Then I downloaded a biz model canvas app on my iPad and got to work.

I called the app Petition Track. (don't laugh)

Over the next year, I did market research, changed the name/brand, learned to code, made a simple website that featured my napkin, got feedback and traction, and failed at raising capital.

I had a new goal - make $1.

After a of , we did it! In 2016, we launched the MVP and began to acquire customers, make money, and put it back into the business to build a team of passionate legal tech folks.

At the same time, I was building my own team at home.

Baby 1 in 2015
Baby 2 in 2017

From 2016-2019, we gained 6,000 new customers, had 14% month over month growth and launched several new products!

And I grew even MORE at home...
Babies 3 & 4 in 2018.

We were thinking of ways to expand at NextChapter. Our options:

a) move into other legal practice areas (which would require more connections in those spaces we were unfamiliar with)

b) go consumer-facing like a true TurboTax solution for bankruptcy (this posed issues with UPL)

That's when I called a mentor of mine. Who happened to be a competitor. I asked for his advice on how we would grow or if we should partner in some way and it turned into a discussion of acquisition. https://twitter.com/myfriendjanine/status/1295707198241353728?s=20

Over the next few months, we realized it was the perfect fit at the perfect time.

The acquiring company had access and relationships with the markets we were looking to grow into but lacked the workflow software to make it happen.

We had the tech and the team to do it.

So after a loooooot of legal documents (srsly, so many), we all signed and I gave over my shares in a company I poured my heart into for all of my twenties while raising a family.

It was a difficult decision and one I didn't take lightly.
But I'm so happy I did.

Because now, just 1 year after acquisition, and almost 8 years since I quit my job at the law firm, I am proud of the work I've done building NextChapter and honoring our mission from day one: Helping people get to the next chapter of their lives.

Just like it did for me.